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Top candidate Jonathan Fried declined trade negotiator’s role over salary

James Dean, US Business Editor

June 17 2017, 12:01am, The Times

Sir Jeremy Heywood approached several overseas experts to serve as chief trade negotiation adviser for Liam Fox’s Department for International Trade but they walked away, unhappy with the salaryAlan Davidson/Silverhub/REX/Shutterstock

The leading candidate to be Britain’s chief trade negotiator after Brexit withdrew when the head of the civil service refused to negotiate over the £160,000 salary, The Times has learnt.

Jonathan Fried, a Canadian trade negotiator who played a leading role in broking deals with the US, the European Union and China, was considered to be the best candidate but he walked away at the final stage of talks because Sir Jeremy Heywood would not budge on the salary, sources said.

Sir Jeremy approached several overseas experts to serve as chief trade negotiation adviser for Liam Fox’s Department for International Trade (DIT) but they walked away for the same reason.

A number of other prominent trade negotiators said they did not bother filling in applications…